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Decided its about time to lump all my vehicles in one post, so i have a diary of progress, or more likely disasters! First one on the fleet is Shonky, a bx 17tgd. My favourite out the lot, and has taken me to France numerous times. All time best I've managed on a run is 65mpg taking it easy. He was a bit of a mess when I bought him, hence the name. However he was remarkable solid, just needing the usual inner wing repairs doing. He also had cambelt, new rear arm bearings, alloys and new tyres, replacement drivers seat, and next year I'll be replacing his rear quarter panel as its been bashed numerous times in the past. Next came the Xsara enterprise van, nicely run in at 278k now with a massive history file. It had one company owner from new until I bought it two years ago. Cambelt just changed and now showing an engine management light, something to do with the maf sensor. I've just bought a Lexia and trying to get my head round it so diagnostics might become easier. really need a better laptop on Xp than the one I'm using to install it on. Then there's the bargain Xm I bought for £200 which came with a full tank of petrol! Known as the Gaffer due to his reg plate, he had a full exhaust and flew through his Mot. Did about 2000 miles in him but then he blotted his copy book by bursting a main hydraulic pipe. Currently sat on the drive awaiting repairs. He's pretty solid underneath but suffering laquer peel on the roof and a few other little places. Gaffer is a 2 litre 16v petrol automatic so likes a drink. A little c2 was bought as i needed to put my car no claims on something before I lost them. Somehow got the nickname of Project Pinky, mainly due to his manly colour. Just finished giving him a full service, cambelt, front shocks, strut mounts and bearings, brake discs and pads, and bottom ball joints. Changed his rotten aftermarket replacement front wing for a temporary black one to I can either find a replacement in the correct colur or get rattle can a panel up. Also got a replacement interior in the original funky orange colour of Ebay for 10p, yes 10p. This has been fitted to replace the ones which had some nasty fag burns. Aircon even works too, a bonus in the summer. Finally theres is Bleriot, my problem child. Purchased for the sum of £215, he's a 1.7d, so epic ally slow, and suffers really loud intake noise. He will never be a show car, he's had some poor quality repairs in the past but he's fun to drive with no pas and a very short first gear. Currently just gone round the back to start replacement of the front to rear hydraulic pipes, as one burst. Pipes are a bit rusty! After a clean up with the pressure washer. surprisingly all the usual rot points at the back are solid. I'll rust treat any little bits and wax oil before he goes back on the road. Found a little more welding needed on the sill. He needs all his front inner wings doing too, but i'm trying to ignore this lol Oh and yes, this little beauty is getting delivered tomorrow, care of WorldofCeri. Its a 1,4 petrol St tropez. Needs some welding doing, a good valet, and service before a mot. Its completely poverty spec, with no central locking and keep fit windows. It does however have a factory fitted glass tilt sunroof and funky seats. I'll try my best to remember to keep this thread updated with fleet updates and repairs.

Car : y reg Omega 3.2 MV6 196K
Rocker Gaskets replaced last summer at about 183K with genuine parts.
Proper cleaned out breather tubes on top of engine. .
Oil changed at 193K with genuine GM Fully Syth and Filter. (Cast Housing)
No leaks until 3 weeks ago. Started small, I always check the oil before a long journey (and I do a lot of them) and I've been adding a bit more often but now on Thursday I had to top up after 100 miles into a Journey, and Then again 80 Miles later (on Sunday) and again this morning at 70 miles into a Journey, AND then another 70 miles this afternoon, and now 70 miles on it needs more. I calculate about 6 litres for about 450 miles. That's a lot of rust proofing on the exhaust and lots of it on the floor.
I've not had it up on the ramps, (as Snow and rain and doesn't fit in my garage) but had it running and had a look at the filter housing area, and seems to be pouring down the back of the engine.
At first I wondered if the little wiring plug next to the Oil Filter Housing is likely to leak? but seems to be above that. (Car is too low to see without ramps)
When the Rocker gaskets were leaking before it was all very slow. Yes there was an advisory on the MOT, but nothing like this.
And it hasn't been leaking in at least 12K since I did them.
So what are we thinking ?
I blame JohnK !!!!!
There is oil on the rocker cover because Spillage

I have had my 1 Series BMW on Scumtree this last week, it's been a difficult sell due to the mileage I think. It's got nearly 250k and no one seems to be up for a car with that mileage showing, even though it has extensive history and has been serviced every 10k in the last 6 years. I have a guy coming over to look at it tomorrow but he has a 2003 Cooper Bini. This might be a good little thing for Mrs T, what to look for and what goes wrong though. Any experience anyone? Thanks in advance!

So, as any good autoshiter knows - if you have a hankering for an estate (insert other car here) you of course make sure you have all bases covered and end up with 3 of them...... I (we) decided the weekend was the perfect (only) time to get over and collect the motor of much cheapness (other estate is cheapness of tin foil variety so this was second placed). Minime has collection-eered before and loves it, so no worries there. Up at crack of Dawn - she's a game girl - and a decently healthyish breakfast was had...... and out the door with munchkin with suitable cards, wallets, foliage and other important paper type shite... to utilise the Choo Choo number1 which saw successful crossing of much water without a drop on us.....thankfully - we were happy about that. To celebrate - we spent the day whiling away the hours before we avoided a well respected shiter..... so we saw a lot of things like this and enjoyed sunshine.... as it got dark - we headed to that battlefield memorial that is a struggle of even greater forces even to this day..... Waterloo. Got on this - which then stood fucking still for an eternity..... while WhatsApp messages were pinged back n forth to keep vendor and gf informed we were royally fucked by the Rail that is SouthWestern...... as vendor works for them - I couldn't say too much. He's a nice chap. Rocked up at almost 22 of those daily hours..... gf was nice goth rock lady that munchkin liked a lot. Papers were thrown at each other..... key turned - trundled off into the darkness. It was at this point I realised I hadn't watched as taxi man got us to the address..... so had no clue as to the way out. 30mins later..... a main road. 5mins after that - motorway. Navigator had given up and I was on my own....... HS2 nightmare that is blockage - meant hotel was achieved at midnight with sleeping navigator over my shoulder. 5hrs sleep and a day of rest beckoned......

Anyone fancy a day in North London fettling a small 1300 Dolomite? Needs a service, choke cable fitting, rad filling and rear brakes taking apart and cleaning. Good kebabs available locally! Fluids provided! Fuzzy head preventing actual doing of things. Plus additional Toledo fettling if desired. Needs a 12v socket fitting and rerouting the overdrive switch so it fits under the dash, need advice on a switch and a tell tale light. Anyone fancy it who is electrically savvy?

Coalnotdole's Scimitar GTE: Fuel Injecting The Ford Essex
I've spent the last two weeks working on the Scimitar, ok I'll be specific: The red GTE (as I do own three of the sodding things.) I've been considering starting a thread about it for a while but I'm no longer sure it really qualifies as autoshite enough...?
After all Scimitars are sort of a bit desirable now... well ok, they are not as worthless as they used to be. I've never actually done a thread on the GTE as I had sort of thought it was mainstream and classic car like for the forum, Though it did make an appearance at shitefest 2015 and does feature occasionally in the news thread and has even made it into the calendar! So it is maybe at least a bit AS?
Anyway I'll let the forum decide, If no ones interested I'll stick to posting about Rebels and SS1's. I can promise though that this thread will feature the following key elements:
A Plastic Shooting brake form the early 70's.
Spending far in excess of the value of the car on fixing / modifying it.
A reckless disregard for the sensible use of money.
The worst paint job in history*
An engine tuned up by former Williams F1 engineer,
Complicated Electronics that I don't fully understand,
Fibreglass work and Welding,
A daily diver that only a total masochist would bother with,
An opportunity for it all to go spectacularly wrong...
I should probably take the opportunity at this point to fill in some background history on the car. I bought it in 2010 as a non running project. I'd never owned an old* car before instead I generally drove end of life modern bangers all of which I'd driven into the ground (some of them literally.) I'd admired the Scimitar since I saw one decaying in a yard where my dad went to get his cars serviced, They slipped from my mind until one day I was in an abandoned foundry in Ipswich and came across a discarded book on cars ( I think it was Clarksons top 100 cars or something like that,) In amongst all the exotica was a Scimitar and suddenly I was reminded of that car I'd seen years before. A few months later my mk4 Astra terminally shit its gearbox and fuel pump in the space of a month, Pissed off with the disposable nature of modern cars I got thinking about the Scimitar. Surely a fibreglass bodied car with a solid chassis and an over engineered British V6 should be the Ideal car? It won't rot, should be reliable and any problems should be fixable with a piece of chewing gum and a bit of string...
Naturally at this point I went on eBay and because I didnt know what I was doing (or looking at for that matter) I inevitably bought the worst Scimitar project available. The engine bay had been on fire and badly repaired with steel, the wiring loom was missing, The chassis needed a total overhaul, the suspension was fucked and the brakes only existed as parts in a bucket! Somehow with my mate Dave's assistance we managed to put it back together and against all the odds in 2011 It went back on the road and did become my everyday car.
The GTE in 2011
It benefitted from rolling improvements and as an when I had spare cash bits were steadily enhanced to improve reliability. Generally, it was pretty good and fail to proceed incidents were rare enough, certainly rare enough for me to keep my job in any case.
By Spring 2016 and suddenly there were a few clouds on the horizon the engine felt tired, it was down on power and had an unfortunate tendency to run hot. It was rough at Idle and Recently the oil pressure has seemed a bit low. In short I sort of suspected it was a bit fucked. (though it was still good enough to get me done for speeding on the M4 eariler in the year...)
Here's a recent-ish picture of the car:
The engine was the one that came with car when I bought it 6 years ago. Its not original to the car and I haven't done a huge amount to it in that time, save for fitting a set of unleaded heads with roller rockers (as the push fit studs kept pulling out.) and fit a steel timing gear. Its done quite a few miles since then. hard to put a figure on it as the odometer is a bit erratic, certainly more than 60,000 though. Not too bad for a random second hand engine.
I'd always known the engine was going to need attention before long and I'd horded a decent amount of tuning bits, as well as 2 complete 3.1 Essex's. I had intended to put together a decent fast road oriented 3.1 but as a project it had more or less come to a halt at the parts acquisition stage.
As I started getting the parts together to build up a new engine I found my focus creeping towards trying to get a touch more power out of the Essex. the figure of 185ish ft lb of torque with around 200hp appealed. This is a reasonable enough figure but to get there your probably going to have to change to either a Holley carb or a triple weber setup. My GTE's an everyday car rather than a weekend / track car so the concept of mid teens on the MPG was enough to get me to think twice about going down that route. A few years back I became aware of the Samcor EFI Essex and that begged the question was it possible to squeeze extra performance out of the Essex with fuel injection, with the additional benefits of modern electric control and reliability....
I did consider going down the alternate engine route but ruled it out in the end. Mainly because an alterative engine would have meant having the car off the road for too long while it was fitted. I've noticed that scimitar engine conversions appear to rumble on for years and very few actually result in a car thats actually in regular use. There are exceptions to that but It was enough to put me off an engine swap. Added to that I actually quite like the Essex... controversial I know! in my opinion it suits the car, the torque and power are usefully delivered and the gearing is pretty good. With the engine a long way back the weight distribution is not bad either. Reliant came up with neat enough arrangement in the engine bay, even finding room for the spare wheel. This tidy packaging solution is something that is often compromised once you start swapping engines. Add to this I much prefer the idea of enhancing the original concept rather than binning it off.
So as well as acquiring spares for an engine rebuild I'd started planning an EFI conversion, I put out feelers to try and locate a Samcor EFI setup but, given how rare they are the chances of finding one of those seemed remote, so I'd decided to use a triple weber inlet manifold and triple Jenvy throttle bodies. These were to be fitted to a balanced 3.1 with a fast road cam. I even got as far as buying a megasquirt ECU and starting to think about trigger wheels when I came across an engine for sale which was very similar to the engine I was about to build.
The engine for sale was a 3.2L Stage 4 Essex, which had done less than 2,000 miles since it was rebuilt. The seller had bought it from Specialised engines and was about to have it installed in his Capri, when he realised it was difficult to turn over. He sent it to another specialist who then rebuilt it a second time This time round The top end was sent to John Hoad , former Chief Technician at Williams F1. He reworked the heads and inlet manifold before the whole engine was put together and fitted to a Capri. The engine was installed and went in to Northampton motorsport for tuning its Triple Carbs. They suggested to the owner that It would run better on fuel injection and so they Fitted triple Jenvy throttle bodies with pico injectors running of a Omex 710 ECU at the end of last year.
The entire setup was available complete which was important as on paper at least it should be a bolt on setup. Saving a vast amount of development time compared to building a new engine from scratch to a similar spec.
Hence I found myself talking to the seller and was able to put a deal together to by the engine. In the process recklessly blowing the entire respray budget (and a bit more) on engine, fuel pumps, ECU, Loom, coil packs etc....!
Here it is on the way home:
Heres a few pictures once it was home on the standâ€¦
A rough outline of the work to fit this engine looks like this:
Fuel Tank modifications,
Fuel Pipe replacement,
Installation of Fuel Pumps & filtering,
Swap the engine to use a front bowl sump & timing gear,
Baffle a front bowl sump,
Fit the new engine,
Installation of a stand alone wiring loom to connect engine / ECU / Coil packs and injectors,
Find room in the engine bay for a fuel pressure regulator, coil packs, etc
Connect it up and get it working!

An update on the 405 and a general look round Interior pics soon. The front bumper came off its mountings because no one had bothered to fit the bottom three screws in so it caught on the kerb when I reversed off and pulled it off. I have bodged it back on for now as I have a new bumper ready to fit. Initial impressions are that mechanically it’s good it has new tyres new cam belt and it drives well. One rear shock is starting to weep so I will get a new pair. The paint is ok ish for its age, the drivers side being rough where the door edge protectors were and under the fuel filler where the petrol spills have ruined the lacquer. The new front bumper rear bumper and spoiler will be painted as they are poor and the correct colour coded mirrors will be fitted as the passenger side is not working anyway. I haven’t done much inside yet just cleaned up the plastics and fixed the many blown bulbs. I am hoping to sort the bumper out early April. The underside is good and has even been waxoyled.

Well, this will either be greeted with deafening silence, or will be taken under our wings. I've got use of the unloved and now unwanted works Escort van. I've been using it for a few weeks now, but didn't know if it would have any interest on here. Well, now the M.O.T is due and work doesn't want to spend any money on it, but I can fix it myself, and keep using it, if I want. It needs for its ticket, new tyres, a windscreen, a rear wheel bearing, a front spring, discs and pads and the load compensating valve freeing/ replacing. It needs loads of other bits as well, but not as urgently. The upside is that there is another van to strip bits off. I really shouldn't bother doing it, but that's not the shiters way. I have to spend an inordernately large amount of time to fix up a vehicle that is teetering on the bridge,apparently. So, today's job is to go and collect the van to be raided for bits. Bonus finger shot. Its beautiful, isnt it?

So after introducing myself last week I thought I should put some info up of my project ‘Salvo’. He’s a 1993 Fiat Tipo 2.0 16V Sedicivalvole with the option of ABS and Recarro seats fitted and is a late registered 5 door version Having been brought up with Fiats in the family from a baby (my Dad worked for a Fiat dealer in Warwick) I always had a want for a Tipo Sedici. I remember Dad having one as a company demo when I was 12ish. So after moving on an X1/9 that myself and a friend had rebuilt the gearbox amongst many other jobs I found ‘Salvo’ on the dreaded eBay. He needs a lot of work, I knew this when buying him, but it proved a good idea to have him transported home as a brake pipe burst unloading it from the lorry... So to the subject of ‘rust’. Yes it’s a Fiat but by the 90s I don’t think they were any worse than their equivalents from Ford or Vauxhall etc. While the Tipo was famously galvanised from new (as the adverts made a lot of effort to tell) they seem to have forgotten the rear arches on mine (and a lot of others...). I’ll hopefully do a series of posts showing what’s been done so far plus the ongoing hunt for solid metal but will start with some pictures of Salvo as he first arrived. One of the first jobs was finding a set of correct wheels for a 5 door Sedici rather than the later 3 door style and to lose the ones it came on. Then the investigation into the rear arch rot began... plus what the plastic side skirts were hiding. Oh and the exhaust falling off, clutch release bearing very noisy, no brakes, no idea of when the timing belt was done and a very sticky inside!

So i have been between employment since June after telling the Rac where to stick their job. Trouble is after 17 years of having a orange van outside my front door i now need a means of commuting (unless i get a job that supplies wheels). Still my situation means that although i have various vehicles scattered on my drive a dedicated work ride was a must. I plan on working local to home so a cheap fuel efficient old ride would do me fine. I fancied a diesel Bx and came close to buying a cheap one in south London that was gassing into it's coolant but thought better of it. Looking through ebay i spotted a genuine giffer owned Daihatsu YRV turbo that had sprung a fluid leak and lost drive for a reasonable £400. Trouble was it was banana yellow flavour. But the thought of a small jap automatic car with a turbo and 130bhp did seem like the perfect to and from work car solution so i started looking around for one in a more subtle colour. After a quick scan of the usual sites i found a cheap broken Daihatsu in the wastelands near Walsall.

The first MGF is from on here via Urban_Paranoia. The second - there is a tale to tell. I got wind of it as a spares car listed on Facebook, hasn't moved in years, they only want £100 for it. Then various people posted and said "omg those rimz". Apparently they're rare. The seller got wind of this and put the price up to £250. Fuck! Not worth it. I hatched a plan though; I decided to list the rims for sale for £200, and if I got a bite, I would buy the car. Nothing happened for a couple of months, then out of the blue I got a message asking if I still had the wheels. I messaged the seller of the car to see if it was still available? Yes. Would they take £150? Yes. Ooooh man maths result. I popped round that night, removed the rims and put some of my own on, paid the £150. Went home, put some air in the tyres of the fancy rims. Within about 20 minutes the guy was there to pick up the rims - £200 - excellent, I'm £50 in the black!!!! After a while I got to thinking that I really should get it back to my house rather than let it sit on the seller's drive any longer. I went round and put a battery on it just to see what happened. It only bloody started first turn of the key, having been sat there for four years!!! Unfortunately the clutch was seized or something funny was going on, so it wasn't mobile, but it was good to know that it ran. I turned it off again because I didn't want to set fire to the sizeable bramble that was growing through and out of the engine bay. Anyway, this morning I got a man from Shiply to recover it to my house, so this car has cost me the princely sum of £2 including the transport. I did actually manage to start it again, and move it under its own power - not very far, and the clutch smelled very burny, but I went far enough backwards and forwards to a) un-seize the brakes, and angle it towards the truck a bit. Then I stalled it and it decided not to start again. Hey ho. It's got lacquer peel everybloodywhere. The interior is nice(ish) though. The bramble: Free plant life! Free fungus! Plans are to swap the bumpers off this one onto the other one, maybe the seats and wheel and gearknob if they clean up well. Then sell it (will be for sale on here first obviously) and decide whether to try and salvage this new one. It's only going to be good for track car use I suspect, but I have some bits to make quite a convincing cheap track car out of it.

I was in scrap metal yard a while back and they had a Rialto saloon near the gate. One of the lads working there tried selling it to me and mentioned they had another tucked away. I didn't have the cash for the Rialto at the time but this month HMRC are paying me back a nice tax rebate so what better to do than splurge it on a car right? I went back to the yard a few days ago and asked about the two cars. The Rialto at this point has had the engine sold from it, is in many pieces and the bodywork isn't in great condition with cracks all over. The other was this 1990 Robin LX. The owner of the yard, a former Reliant salesman, went to the Isle of Arran with a trailer for it. Technically it wasn't for sale but I think his son (that works in the yard) convinced him to let it go on the grounds that it had just been sitting. It had been sat untouched for 18 months looking like this. 1990 Reliant Robin LX by Matt S, on Flickr 19902 Reliant Robin LX (Rear) by Matt S, on Flickr Misery spec, no rear wiper! After some fettling and finding that the fuel tank was totally dry we managed to get it running, and running well! It wouldn't move under it's own power as it was on that rough ground with two flat tyres and seized brakes. The yard owner said he would free the brakes off and move it onto the more solid ground later that day. I went back today and swapped one of back the wheels for one off of the Rialto saloon and remarkably managed to get the utterly ruined front tyre to hold air. A minor mishap occurred when taking the front wheel off because my jack isn't low enough to get under the centre of the chassis where the front suspension bolts on and as it turns out my axle stands are juuuuust tall enough to find the tipping point... A little mishap... by Matt S, on Flickr It happened in total slow motion. The good thing however is that it's light to the point that I was able to push it back up with one hand and get my jack under with the other. Robin moved from it's resting place by Matt S, on Flickr At this point I could just about push it by myself however one of the brakes was just grabbing enough at a certain point that I couldn't push and steer it at the same time. Happily the yard owner is allowing me to keep it on the property for a bit while I get it ready for an MOT but there was the small issue of the nearest solid ground being 200 meters (650+ feet) away... LDV to the rescue! LDV To The Rescue! by Matt S, on Flickr And onto solid ground for the first time in a long time. Hard ground at last by Matt S, on Flickr The wheels are a favorite of mine, tiny slot mags! I don't know who made them and I've only been able to find one photo of a Robin with these wheels. Check out the ancient (2003)145 x 10" Camac BN313 still holding air after 16 years! I can't wait to get these polished up with the slots painted body colour. My new car... by Matt S, on Flickr That's where we stand now. My plan is to get it MOT'd and just drive it around and enter some shows. The job list for MOT time looks like: Replace all three tyres Replace O/S headlight Replace N/S seatbelt (the reel end has rusted and broken out of the floor!) Replace brakes Refit rear seat and belts (I haven't even seen belts back there so I don't know for a fact if it even has rear belts) Other jobs: Refit the engine covers Sort the door hinges as both doors have sagged Get the boot open as it's stuck partially latched Any Reliant fanciers able to tell me anything about this dealer? Edit: The car was registered new in Ayr so I'm not sure how this tag ended up on the keys. Anyone know who the dealer around Ayr would have been? Oldham Reliants by Matt S, on Flickr

This morning I drove to Kings Lyn to collect some " mint" refurbished Bottle Top alloys with new matching tyres. That No.1 daughter wanted for the 316 that we're putting back on the road this week( hopefully) After a terrible 2.5 hour journey ( A1 shut) we discovered they had the wrong size tyres and the powder coating used by the refurber appears to be grey Hammerite. I was so pissed off I couldn't trust myself to speak to the kid selling them and just got back in the car... Anyway it seems any 4x100 BMW wheels are getting scarce and expensive, anybody got anything suitable in either 14 or 15 inch ? With or without tyres and any condition as long as priced accordingly . About £200 seems to be average price for presentable 14" with tyres- I expect an MoT'd 325 to be bolted to them for that, apparentlly that's because I'm an old fart.

I had a heartfelt and detailed thread about this that was lost in one the great forum outages of nineteen-oatcake. Anyway, here we go again.. I set my heart upon an X1/9 back in 2011 when I decided that a better value for money mid engined useable Italian exotic(!) did not exist.. I was in Glasgow at the time, I looked at a couple of ropey examples within Scotland that were nasty but not nasty enough to put me off. You know what it's like when you want something, you refresh carandclassic every 5 minutes hoping that the dream example turns up, when BLAM! It did! Here's the old car and classic add and pictures: https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C220495 I think he had it advertised for 1500 or so, and he sounded like an entirely genuine and trustworthy character, so I booked a Glasgow- Gatwick flight 10 minutes later. I was in my twenties at the time, and in my naivety had booked my flight for a Saturday morning. Only problem was I got hammered on Friday night and missed my flight.. A swift re-book and I was back on my way to Gatwick that afternoon. It was indeed a bloody lovely example owned by them since it was a demonstrator. They'd in fact been over the San Bernardino pass in it for their honeymoon. Legends. It's rear calliper was binding a bit, so he knocked it down to 1000 and sent me on my way a happy happy man! Only problem was that it was now too late to drive back to Glasgow, so I had to drive into central London to stay with friends. It was then that the hot running issues surfaced.. It tended to cut out and lights and not re-start until it had cooled down. Not fun in London! Anyway, here I am the next day having made it to London. Bonus Merc background chod. That house always had that tasty but scruffy merc, I used to see it regularly when I moved to London. Anyway, the next day I set off super early for Glasgow which it did without hitch.. He it is with my previous car, a really nice w123. Bought that for 800, sold for 1400. Fuck they've gone up! I solved the running issues with and electric fuel pump and carb base gaskets. I taught myself all sorts of things through doing the timing belt, replacing the clutch and brake masters etc.. Every sunny free day I would hoon like a bastard through Scotlands enviable countryside, teaching myslef how to heel-toe and various drifting techniques. For anyone who has never driven one of these, they are an incredible amount of fun. My mk1 Mx5 was thoroughly bland by comparison. I drove it from Glasgow to Turin for the 40th anniversary of the X1/9. Took in Elba and some of France on the way back. It performed admirably, though did cook it's brakes down some hefty mountain passes so I upgraded the brakes to Vented Uno Turbo, which replaces the rubbish sliding wedges with proper sliding pins. I ragged it everywhere which it seemed to lap up. I used to regularly hill climb in it, which was amazing fun. I converted the bumpers to the prettier 1300 style. I MOVED TO LONDON IN IT! Here it is next to my girlfriend's spitfire. Crazy that only 2 years separated the manufacture of these cars. They look, and drove, worlds apart. Here's a fleet highlight from when I bought my BX, later Barret's. My old commuter, the 6v C90 nestled in there. I love this car. I'll never sell it. I used it as a daily for ages FFS! Anyway, after 7 happy years and 50,000 miles or so, I put it in Storage in Scotland cos I was skint. I then became even skinter and had to take it out of storage, so it's been outside for about 18 months now. PBK has kindly let me store it in his Essex barn so that's the next step. It actually sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night, thinking of it rusting! It'll definitely need some welding now, which I'm tempted to get done, but frightened to even ask how much it'd cost. I'll get some fresh pics over Christmas and try and arrange some transport, so watch this space.. Here it was before last winter...

UPDATE: As of post #40, the Monte Carlo SS is up and running! For now the project is on hold until May when I get back from college for the summer. Once I get back, I will be continuing work on getting the car road-worthy once more,. This includes getting new tires, cleaning it, getting historic plates, registering it as such, and switching the insurance from "in-Storage". Exciting times lie ahead in the coming months for this classic 80s car Original Post: Hello fellow shitters, The time has finally come for me to take a look at my dad's 1987 Monte Carlo SS. He bought it brand new back in 1987 and has kept it with him since then. The car has been sitting idle in our garage since I'd estimate 2004/2005/2006? I know the last time It received daily usage was 2003 and then was driven every so often until around 2006. Since then, it's been left to decay in the garage. I began to give it a bit of attention back in December of last year, and I've simply been to busy to look at it otherwise. All 4 tires had long since gone flat, so I filled them back up. The two driver's side tires are still inflated now over a year later, but the passenger side deflated within 48 hours of me filling them. If I recall correctly, at least one of them had a hole back when it was left dormant, which is likely the reason as to why it was left dormant. So its possible its just the tires, or there's now axel rot from it sitting for so long which is why they deflated so quickly. Besides the tires, the car is covered in about an inch of dust, so that'll have to be cleaned. The upholstery on the roof of the car has come detached and is currently being held up with thumbtacks, although that happened way back in like 2000, so that's been like that for awhile. The battery is stone dead, so that will need replacement. The rubber seals around the doors might have to be replaced since I'm not sure how they would hold up in the rain. Finally, whatever fluids are left are probably long stale or evaporated, so they'll need to be replaced as well. As for some cosmetic things, the left brake light cover is cracked and has been since again, around 2000. The center console cover is falling apart and probably could use replacement. The car could also use a few touch-ups on the paint as well. Given these are just cosmetic issues, they're not really major issues that I need to address to get it drivable once again. I'm planning to work on this on Tuesday during my spring break from college. My grandfather, who has been a mechanic for the past 30+ years, will be helping me to get it running once more, so it should be a pretty easy job. I plan to take pictures and to film its first start in over 10 years once the time comes. Really excited to get this car going again since its a fantastic 80s car, with it's maroon interior and exterior. I think my dad will be pretty excited too since he loves that car.

As promised here is a topic for my 1985 Peugeot 305 van project The van was bought by my grandad in 1986 and used as his main workhorse until his retirement in 2010 In 2012 we moved the van from his house to a friends yard. Here's a photo from that day in 2012: My grandad died in May 2017 and the van was left to me, in August I went to pick up the van which I hadn't seen and hadn't been moved since 2012. Photos from that day: I stripped out the interior and did some poking with a screwdriver which found an ungodly amount of rust. Ive since sent the van away to be stripped fully, blasted, welded, and resprayed. I will update this thread as progress is made. Any questions are welcome Hope you all enjoy! Also thanks to Cavcraft for the help with this post!

Well we are going to pick up Mrs fps runaround today, it's not going to be an action packed thread as it's only about 60 miles away but as I havnt collected anything for a while thought I'd do one all the same, hopefully we will see some interesting things on the way A couple of you may guess what it is

Hello everyone after my brief introduction on the intro thread I think its time I started adding to a project thread, the title refers to what has been said when people have found out what car I have chosen as my classic it is a 1967 Rover 2000 SC Now I have had the car for about 2 months but only just this weekend have I done anything serious I managed to get the car started after god knows how long it has been sat dormant 1 new battery, stripped carb & seals later she roared into life loud enough for my neighbour to come out and say ah thought it was you! Now I am not going for originality rebuilding this rover but I am looking forward to the challenge. Next on the list is the brakes which just don't work then some welding well probably a lot actually but seeing as I am trying to keep myself busy after having a serious mental wobble a few months ago what can go wrong! On another note just before I started the beast up on Saturday my phone took a dive and I am currently awaiting a replacement so photos of the rusty blue Steptomobile are scarce.

Thought it might be useful for me to start it's own project thread. Well, as we know, the MOT was obtained. Since then it's had a wash, interior valeted and carpet vacuumed. There are a few little marks and scratches here and there but nothing truly horrible. I have something that might improve matters on that front. I have a replacement front wing and some nice alloys and tyres to collect. The wing will be repainted once warmer weather happens. I started to look at sorting the non-functioning heater control (it just works on 3 and 4). It's usually the resistor thingy that dies and it is located behind the glove box drawer. Access was obtained and I realised I didn't have the correct tool at home to remove it. Stupid torx fastener. So that will be a visit to the lock up on Monday then. The replacement part is only £6 on eBay so that isn't bad really. I have a rocker cover gasket to fit as the one on the car is leaking. I just need to check the CT fluid level and fit the new coolant cap. The boot lid springs are a little weak but I have no idea as to how to sort them out. Not a biggie in the scheme of things.

About two weeks ago this vehicle was inadvertently advertised by stinkwheel on here. Having recognised this vehicle from my time as moderator on the 2cvgb forum, and having seen it change hands then, I was interested. A flurry of pm's saw a seed planted in my mind. We've got some building work to do at home - so what better way to help this than to buy a van that hadn't been on the road for 8 years? Amazingly, my wife thought it a good idea too, and we discussed the proposition with our children. A family fun bus? Why not! My 5 year old son was keen, my 9 year old daughter much less so. Anyway - wingz123 delivered the mucky beast to my drive this afternoon. Thank you very much sir, lovely to meet you! So here we are, project acadiane after a quick jetwash. Sent from my SGP621 using Tapatalk

As you may know I have had this GT6 for several years now. It was my daily driver for a couple of years as was my GT6 before it. They really are one of my favourite cars. I prefer Imps in almost every way except the GT6s are nearly always more reliable. I had owned this GT6 for several years in my mid 20's after a rough break up with my missus and felt the need to be a flash bastard. Fantastic car in every way. I owned it for a couple of years but I moved up to Leeds and it did not have a garage so I punted it on and always regretted it. Several years and several cars later I noticed that the cost of GT6s were creeping up. Panicking slightly I went online to see if there were any I could buy quickly before they became too expensive for me. Most were going for about £3-4k but there was one in Lincolnshite going for £2,700. I kept trying to talk myself out of it (well, I say that) but a lass at work said 'ooh, thats nice' and as she is pretty fit, I thought fuck it, YOLO etc. I drove down to Lincs in the Scirocco that several of you will have seen last week at Shitefest as its now owned by Barefoot and had a look. It was tidy enough. It was pretty ropey compared to my old one TBH but was still worth the money considering the current prices. I took it for a spin and it drove okay. As I said in Moogs thread, the sills looked very suspect but they did not worry me too much as its on a chassis. So I paid a deposit and (think) I got the train down a few days later to pick it up - It was a while ago now. On the way back the car was GR12 except for the bonnet keeping coming up at speed. Every now and then the releases on the side would just let it pop up and the whole of the front of the car would start to raise up. This was simply sorted with some pliers on the catches to make the grip more tightly but caused a couple of scary moments. When I got home this is what I had: Anyhow, I had it for a year or so and it did me proud in good weather and in bad: Here is is with the rest of the cars I had at the time. Oddly, Volksy was round my house one day whilst I was welding his Volvo and he commented on the fact my car had been on Autoshite. I had obviously posted photos of it but he explained that someone else had randomly posted a pic of it and it was a different colour. A little investigation came up with this photo: HOW HOT IS THAT! Why would anyone change that colour to what it is now? The must be mad I thought. Anyhow, it was soon after this that my problems started and I started understanding how money worked and why someone would choose a cheaper colour to paint it. Firstly, as the longer serving members here know I did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx22_M8Cym4&feature=kp Whoops! The damage was not too bad. The exhaust was ripped off and had to be reattached with the electric wire from the fence I had just gone through backwards, the rear bumper was bent, there was a dent in the backside, my seat had been ripped from its guides and I had ended up 3ft back with the fuel tank. All were pretty easily sorted. This however is not the reason its been off the road so long. The reason for that is that I bought a house. Basically I borrowed £36k for a deposit and the got a mortgage. Not all of it needed to be repaid (thanks Dad) but enough of it was to result in me being brassic. So I popped the GT6 in the garage at my new place: Not without a fight though. The ramp up the the garage was so steep, the GT6 grounded out getting in. Simple obstacle to sort though, I just leathered it up the drive breaking the bottom of the garage door frame with the exhaust as you will probably be able to see in the picture. From there the car just languished for several years pretty much acting as a shelf for all the shite I could fit on it whilst I sorted out the Sera, Daf & Lancia (amongst other cars I owned but they actually took some actual work): Interim shite: Here is a pic of a depressed looking GT6 locked away in the garage looking out at my other shite. last year I dragged the GT6 out to properly sort it and get it back on the road. Here it is on a short drive to the pub with the Lancia: The sills and strengtheners were pretty rotten: I had proper sills but was not forking money out on the inside so just used a few slices of metal: I then popped the sill on. (I wish I had taken more photos before I started this there are SO many gaps). I had to also weld up te rear NS arch and the rear OS floor and several other bits. There are still several bits to weld up on the car but there are not test fails (I don't think). Structurally its pretty good. I have since let out my house and moved in with the missus and work has recommenced on the GT6 in the last few weeks. Since it was laid up it developed some electrical problems. For the first time in about 10 years I took a car of mine to a garage to sort out rather than trying to lash it together with chewing gum and foil from fag packets etc. Sadly when I got it back its blowing fuses here there and everywhere. I rang them today and they said they will sort it so I wont name and shame them unless they do me over. They have a good rep though so think it will be okay. The overdrive also does not work anymore. Last time I used it, the overdrive was getting slower and slower to engage. Having never owned a car with overdrive before, I have no idea what this means. Do I need to replace it or is it something else? Is it an easy fix? Fook knows. However, getting it on the road is the priority so that I can then take it straight back off the road to do the cosmetic welding. I think I will update this thread as I go along.

So, I've had this about a year now, it replaced the Talbot Express based camper now owned by Cobblers. That had for me a great layout and well thought out storage, but as my two girls are getting older, (11 this month), I felt I needed more sleeping space. I've run the Convoy for a year and although it's working out well I've noted shortcomings as they've appeared with the intention of addressing them 'soon'. Here's the beast in question...

Its valentine's weekend, love is all around so to celebrate two shiters are taking an international collection mission. It is a famously* reliable* car that currently needs putting back together. WCPGW. It will also include a visit to other shiters for gearbox shenanigans. Should be fun*